1.Far far from gusty waves these children’s faces. Like rootless weeds, the hair torn around their pallor:

The tall girl with her weighed-down head. The paper- seeming boy, with rat’s eyes.

Questions :

(1) Why is the head of the tall girl ‘weighed down’?

(2) What do you understand by ‘The paper-seeming boy, with rat eyes’?

Answer:

(1) The head of the tall girl is ‘weighed down by the burdens of the world. She feels depressed, ill and exhausted. (2) It means that the boy is exceptionally thin, weak and hungry.

(2)‘………………The stunted, unlucky heir Of twisted bones, reciting a father’s gnarled disease, His lesson from his desk. At back of the dim class One unnoted, sweet and young. His eyes live in a dream, Of squirrel’s game, in tree room, other than this.

Questions :

(1) Who is the ‘unlucky heir’ and what will he inherit?

(2) ‘His eyes live in a dream’. What dream does he have?

Answer:

(1) The lean and thin boy having rat’s eyes and a stunted growth is the ‘unlucky heir’. He will inherit twisted bones from his father.

(2) The boy seems hopeful. He dreams of a better time – outdoor games, of a squirrel’s game, of a room made inside the stem of a tree. He dreams of many things other than this dim and unpleasant classroom has, such as green fields, open seas.

3.‘On sour cream walls, donations. Shakespeare’s head, Cloudless at dawn, civilized dome riding sill cities. Belled, flowery, Tyrolese valley. Open-handed map Awarding the world its world’.

Questions:

(1) What is the colour of the classroom walls? What does this colour suggest?

(2) Which two worlds does the poet hint at? How is the contrast between the two worlds resented?

Answer:

(1) The colour of the classroom walls is ‘sour cream’ or off-white. This colour suggests the decaying aspect and pathetic condition of the lives of the children in a slum school.

(2) The poet hints at two worlds: the world of poverty, misery and malnutrition of the slums where children are underfed, weak and have stunted growth. The other world is of progress and prosperity peopled by the rich and the powerful. The pictures on the wall suggesting happiness, richness, well-being and beauty are in stark contrast to the dim and dull slums.

4.‘…….And yet, for these Children, these windows, not this map, their world, Where all their future’s painted with a fog, A narrow street sealed in with a lead sky Far far from rivers, capes, and stars of words.

Questions :

(1) Which is their world?

(2) How is their life different from that of other children?

Answer:

(1) Their world is limited to the window of the classroom. They are confined within the narrow streets of the slum, i.e., far away from the open sky and rivers. Their view is full of despair and despondency. The life of the children seems to be bleak.

(2) The slum children spend their life only in the narrow streets of the land. They do not get the basic necessities of life. They are deprived of food, clothing and shelter. But the main thing that they differ from other children is freedom. They do not enjoy the freedom of life.

5.‘Surely, Shakespeare is wicked, the map a bad example, With ships and sun and love tempting them to steal – For lives that slyly turn in their cramped. holes From fog to endless night’?

Questions:

(1) What does the poet say about ‘their’ lives?

(2) Explain: ‘From fog to endless night’.

Answer:

(1) The poet says that the children spend their lives confined in their cramped holes like rodents. Their bodies look like skeletons because they are the victims of malnutrition. Their steel-frame spectacles with repaired glasses make them appear like the broken pieces of a bottle scattered on stones. Their future seems to be bleak.

(2) Their future is foggy or uncertain. The only certainty in their lives is the endless night of their death. In other words, their birth, life and death are all enveloped by darkness.

6.‘………………….On their slag heap, these children Wear skins peeped through by bones and spectacles of steel With mended glass, like bottle bits on stones. All of their time and space are foggy slum. So blot their maps with slums as big as doom’.

Questions :

(1) What are the two images used to describe these slums? What do these images convey?

(2) What sort of life do such children lead?

Answer:

(1) The images used to describe the slums are :

slag heap,

bottle bits on stone;

foggy slums,

Slum as big as doom.

(Any two acceptable) These images convey the misery the children and the poverty of their dirty and unhygienic surroundings.

(2) In the dirty and unhygienic surroundings the slum children lead very pathetic and miserable lives full of woes, wants, diseases, poverty and uncertainty.

7.‘Unless, governor, inspector, visitor,

This map becomes their window and these windows That shut upon their lives like catacombs’.

Questions:

(1) Why does the poet invoke ‘governor’, ‘inspector’, ‘visitor’? What function are they expected to perform?

(2) How can ‘this map’ become ‘their window’?

Answer:

(1) Governor, inspector and visitor are important and powerful persons in the modem times. The poet invokes them to help the miserable slum children. They are expected to perform an important role in removing social injustice and class inequalities. They can bridge the gap between the two worlds-the beautiful world of the great and rich and the ugly world of slums.

(2) Two worlds exist. ‘This map’ refers to the beautiful world of prosperity and well-being inhabited by the rich and great and shaped and owned by them. ‘Their windows’ refer to the lairs, holes or hovels of the dirty, stinking slums where the poor and unfortunate children of slums live. The slum children will be able to peep through windows only when the difference between the two worlds is bridged.

8.‘Break O break open till they break the town And show the children to green fields, and make their world Run azure on gold sands, and let their tongues Run naked into books the white and green leaves open History theirs whose language is the- sun’.

Questions: ‘

(1) ‘Break O break open’. What should they ‘break’?

(2) What other freedom should they enjoy? ’

Answer:

(1) They should break all the barriers and obstacles that bind these children and confine them to ugly and dirty surroundings.

(2) They should enjoy freedom of acquiring knowledge as well as freedom of expression. Let the pages of wisdom (contained in the books) be open to them and let their tongues run freely without any check or fear.